Speaker of the Edo State House of Assembly, Frank Okiye, has said his deputy, Yekini Idiaye, was impeached on Wednesday because he allegedly planned with the leaders of the All Progressives Congress and the Imo State Governor, Hope Uzodinma, “to illegally and violently take over” the Assembly.
The Assembly impeached Idiaye during plenary on Wednesday and immediately replaced him with the member representing Orhionmwon II Constituency, Roland Asoro.
Idiaye and some lawmakers had on Monday pledged their support for the APC governorship candidate, Osagie Ize-Iyamu.
The Speaker, in an address aired via social media shortly after the impeachment of Idiaye, called on President Muhammadu Buhari to call members of his party to order.
The address was titled, ‘The Urgent Need To Call The Imo State Governor and Leaders Of APC In Edo State To Order Over Their Plan To Violently And Illegally Takeover The Edo State House Of Assembly’.
Speaking during the address monitored by our correspondent, Okiye said, “We have it on good authority, the dubious plans by the governor of Imo State, Senator Hope Uzodinma, and the stakeholders of APC in Edo State to import a fake maze to take over the Edo State House of Assembly working in cohort with the former deputy speaker who recently declared his support for the governorship candidate of APC to congregate in a separate location to illegally and violently take over the Edo State House of Assembly as brought to our notice.
“And so, we call on the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, President Muhammadu Buhari and the presidency to urgently call this governor and others working with him to execute this illegal plan to desist and allow the laws of the state to guide them.
“The state polity is already heated up by the political tension from the various electioneering campaign. Their planned action is likened to lightening a match in an already tensed political environment which conflagration is capable of causing crisis in the state and may scale beyond imagination.
“We call on Edo State people, whose mandate and interest the state legislature holds and protect, to rise against this attack and plot to subvert their will and subjugate them using external forces.
“We urge lovers of democracy across the world and institutions that uphold democracy and value, as well as pro-democracy groups to denounce this planned illegality that seems to distract a duly constituted authority.
“We recognize the constitutional rights of the three members of the Assembly to support the candidate of their choice but that should not distract them from coming to work to carry out the job for which they were elected and become an agent of mutiny against their own primary constituencies.
“We are as always committed to protecting the democratic rights of our people as the legislature remains the sacred institution in the democratisation process signed by my honourable self on behalf of the Edo State House of Assembly.”
With about six weeks to the September 19 governorship election in Edo, the political atmosphere gets turbo-charged day after day.
Governor Godwin Obaseki, who is seeking reelection on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party, will face Ize-Iyamu of the APC, and other political contenders.
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